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The Canadian ice dance duo didn’t blame their coach for the result, but some recent events suggested it may have been inevitable.

Canada's Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, left, finished second to Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the U.S.A. in ice dance. Both teams have been coached for a long time by Marina Zoueva. (Richard Lautens / Toronto Star)

SOCHI, RUSSIA—A fall in figure skating now results in merely a one-point deduction.

Falling out of favour is what’s fatal.

Japanese teenager Yuzuru Hanyu went splat twice in his free program but he’s going home with an Olympic gold medal. Judges could have easily invested that title on Patrick Chan, the three-time and reigning world champion. A year ago, at worlds, they did precisely that when Chan was outskated by Kazakhstan pistol Denis Ten in the long, silver then and bronzed here.

But that was in the days when Toronto-raised Chan could do no wrong, even when he did. And perhaps judges were stung by the avalanche of criticism they received, not that many of them have ever been known to feel chastened, even when caught red-handed cheating.

In Sochi, they demanded more of 23-year-old Chan: We know you’re the best male skater on the planet, but prove it in the here and now. So they cut him no slack on the over-rotated landing of his nemesis triple Axel, the doubled-down triple Salchow, the botched double Axel, the wobbly spin.

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There were enough errors to drop Chan into silver on a night when no man — except Ten — skated with flourish.

With the worst timing possible, the judges had fallen out of love with Chan. He didn’t knock their socks off. He withered under pressure. So they ushered in a changing of the guard.

Perhaps judges have fallen out of love as well with Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, the sublime ice dancers they’d fervently embraced in Vancouver. One judge — probably the American on the panel, but that can’t be stated as fact — has never been sweet on the Canadians. A preference for gold-winning Meryl Davis and Charlie White was evident right across the board.

But the question Virtue and Moir have asked themselves this past season — still grappling with it Tuesday, in the aftermath of the ice dance competition — was whether they had slipped in the affection and neutrality of their coach, Marina Zoueva, mama-bear as tutor, choreographer and nurturer to both the Canadians and the Americans at their shared training base in Canton, Mich.

At their respective nationals last month, which fell on the same weekend, Zoueva chose to be with Davis and White in Boston, rather than with Virtue and Moir in Ottawa. In the opening ceremonies here, she marched with the Americans. And she designed a free dance for the U.S. duo, Scheherazade, that was distinctly more entertaining and becoming than the Petit Adagio, with its disjointed music — probably more difficult to execute, too.

With clear discomfort in doing so, Moir and Virtue revealed some of their doubts to reporters on Tuesday, contradicting comments they’d made about this very issue over recent months. They had indeed felt like less valued disciples in the last year, like stepchildren of a frailer bond.

“We went to Marina on countless occasions and told her that we weren’t happy and in no way were we going to be happy with a silver medal,” said Moir. “We tried everything. It felt a little bit like we were in quicksand ...”

What they felt in their bones — and was reflected in their scores, not just in the 2013 Grand Prix season but the year before, when it appeared more of an anomaly than a pattern — was a momentum shift toward the Americans that they couldn’t halt, no matter how hard they worked and even when the free dance was altered, at their insistence.

“Whatever was missing, whatever deficiencies we saw, we needed to make up for on our own,” said Virtue.

It was Virtue, Moir divulged, who spoke bluntly to Zoueva about it. The coach, she said, was receptive. Zoueva has had the Canadians for a decade, the Americans for 14 years.

“In our situation, it’s our job to have moments throughout the fall series, particularly after the Grand Prix final (won by Davis and White), where we took ourselves out of this world and sort of had a bird’s-eye view of what was happening and wanted to get some perspective,” says Virtue, “make sure that we were in the right place and make sure that we were being taken care of and make sure we had the attention we needed.

“I guess the bluntness with Marina was saying that second wasn’t acceptable, and we weren’t going to settle for anything else. So we needed her to bring her A game. In return we promised to do the same.”

They did this week, if not in the team competition last week. Did Zoueva?

“We were both pretty blunt with her in the fall and even leading up to the Olympics, that we weren’t happy and we felt sometimes that she wasn’t in our corner,” says Virtue. “She handled that tremendously well.”

They are immensely grateful to Zoueva, for the creativity and knowledge she poured into them. Yet there were episodes that made them wonder.

“We had some odd things happen this year that hasn’t happened before,” said Moir. “We expected that Marina would march with us and be with our team like she was in Vancouver. And we understand that she wasn’t but it was a tough pill to swallow, and also not being at our national championships for the first time in our whole career was odd.”

They were always smitten with the free dance Zoueva gave them and still cannot understand why many observers considered it strangely flat.

“Every note of music was handcrafted and every step was personal and told a story in its own way,” insists Virtue. “Making this sort of the story of our partnership over 17 years, the ups and downs; it’s a really sentimental program. I’m thrilled with how we performed. That’s how I’ve been envisioning it for the last season.”

Neither Virtue nor Moir would take anything away from the golden achievement of their rivals. They did, however, admit that the thought of a coaching switch had crossed their minds.

“It did for sure,” said Moir. “But at the end of the day it’s a personal fit. It works with Marina and she’s given us a lot of great things, our career. This wasn’t a failure. This was a successful Games for us. We don’t look back on this and think we made a mistake by not switching coaches.”

They likely will have no further need of her. While not yet formally announcing their retirement from competition, it certainly did sound like goodbye.

I was there when the Olympic journey began, world silver in Sweden in 2008. I was there when it probably ended with Olympic silver in 2014.

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